Approve a $100 Instagram ad test, split 50/50: Vitamed puts in $50 and I match it with $50 of my own. It runs $5 a day for 20 days (Oct 5 – 24) and promotes two service posts: switching pharmacies/insurance, and free delivery. It targets people within about 2 miles of 149th St. in English and Spanish. The spending cap is set at $100 in Meta, so it can't go over.
Expected result: about 2,700 local people see Vitamed at least twice, and about 5 of them call or message. Today a post reaches about 7 accounts.
Worst realistic case: about 1,800 people reached and 1 or 2 calls.
Stop rule: we continue only if at least 2 new customers mention Instagram, or at least 1% of the people shown the ad tap it. Otherwise we stop at $100.
One check before we pay: Meta may ask for pharmacy certification before approving the ads. See "Before we spend".
Vitamed: $50My match: $50Total: $100, cappedTo approve: reply "yes" by Oct 3
What the numbers say
34posts published (17 in English, 17 in Spanish)
~7accounts reached per post, on average
516total views across all posts
82total likes
0shares or saves
Main finding
Posting alone isn't reaching the neighborhood. The best post reached 22 accounts (English and Spanish combined), and a typical one reaches 3 to 11. At this size, Instagram mostly shows our posts to people who already follow us. That's the case for ads: posting well is not the problem. Very few people are seeing the posts.
Trend
Reach has been sliding and dropped to almost zero when posting stopped. Weekly reach peaked at 22 accounts in late July, fell to 12 by early September, then to 2 during Sep 14–27, when nothing was posted. Posting three times a week without gaps is the minimum.
Post types
No type of post is a clear winner yet. Service posts, health tips and carousels come out slightly ahead, and holiday and community posts come out behind. But the gaps are one or two accounts, which is too small to rely on. Older posts also look better partly because they've had longer to collect views.
Language
English and Spanish perform the same (7.1 vs 6.9 accounts per post). Keep running every post in both languages, and run ads in both.
Accounts reached per week
Unique accounts reached across the whole profile each week (Monday start). The week of Jun 29 covers Jul 1–5 only. Posts published before Jul 23 were posted outside Postiz and aren't in the per-post numbers below.
Every post, ranked
Views and accounts reached for each post, with the English and Spanish versions added together. The number after each bar is views; hover a bar for reach and likes. Color shows the type of post.
Averages by type (per individual post)
Group
Posts
Reach
Views
Likes
Type
Service
16
7.5
15.7
2.8
Health tip
10
6.7
16.5
2.6
Community / holiday
6
5.7
11.8
1.8
Trust ("real pharmacist")
2
8.0
14.5
0.5
Format
Carousel
6
7.5
18.8
2.7
Single image
28
6.9
14.4
2.4
Design
Flat illustration
16
7.2
16.2
2.6
House flyer (photo)
18
6.7
14.3
2.3
Language
English
17
7.1
15.5
2.6
Spanish
17
6.9
14.9
2.2
Every post shows exactly 1 comment. That looks like an automatic or in-house comment rather than customers, so comments are left out of the comparison.
Which posts to put ad money behind
Ads should push the actions that bring in a customer: switching to Vitamed, setting up delivery, or setting up refills. These are also the post types most likely to pass Meta's ad review, because they promote a service and don't mention any medication.
Boost: the $100 test
Insurance, Medicaid and switching pharmacies (Post 17 "Worried your insurance won't work here?"). Our best-reaching post, and a switch brings in a long-term customer. Boost the existing post.
Free delivery (Post 30 "Rainy day? Stay in. Free delivery.", posting Oct 9). Delivery sets us apart from the big chains, and the rainy-day angle fits a local audience in October.
$50 per post, split between the English and Spanish versions. The insurance post runs Oct 5 – 24 and the delivery post runs Oct 9 – 24. With $100, two posts is the limit: spread across more, each ad gets too few impressions to tell whether it works.
Maybe later
Refill reminders / the 7-day rule (Post 32; Post 12 refill reminders was our #3 post). The next one to add if the test works.
Curbside for parents (Post 40, Oct 17) and "A real pharmacist picks up" (Post 28). Good service messages to rotate in if the test works.
Hispanic Heritage Month (Posts 29 and 38). Good for local awareness, but community posts reached the fewest people when posted normally.
Don't boost
Health tips and over-the-counter posts (allergies, sniffle season, dry air, medication safety). Meta restricts ads about medicines, and these can read as medical advice. Keep them as regular posts.
Anything that names a drug, mentions prescriptions for a specific condition, or targets people under 18.
Post plan through Oct 17
Everything below is already scheduled in Postiz, three or more posts a week so there's no repeat of the September gap. Each post goes out in English at 11 AM and in Spanish at 5 PM. The two rows marked Ad get the ad money.
Date
Post
Type
Status
Tue Sep 29
The 7-day rule: call before you run out
Service · refills
Scheduled
Wed Sep 30
World Pharmacists Day: ours know your name
Trust
Scheduled
Thu Oct 1
American Pharmacists Month: 4 things to ask us (free)
Service · carousel
Scheduled
Sat Oct 3
Dry air season: small fixes
Health tip
Scheduled
Mon Oct 5
Hispanic Heritage Month: the counter is yours
Community
Scheduled
Oct 5 – 24
"Worried your insurance won't work here?" (from July)
Service · switching
Ad · $50
Tue Oct 6
You moved to Jersey. Mami's still on 149th.
Service · delivery
Scheduled
Thu Oct 8
Home medication safety: 4 habits
Health tip
Needs your answer
Fri Oct 9
Rainy day? Stay in. Free delivery.
Service · delivery
Scheduled + Ad · $50
Sat Oct 10
Meet the team behind the counter
Trust · real photo
Needs a staff photo
Tue Oct 13
The month ends Oct 15. The pride doesn't.
Community
Scheduled
Thu Oct 15
Global Handwashing Day: 20 seconds
Health tip
Scheduled
Sat Oct 17
Kid asleep in the back? Stay in the car. (curbside)
Service · curbside
Scheduled
What I need from you
By Oct 3: a yes on the ad test and Vitamed's $50.
By Oct 6: when a customer asks "how do I get rid of old medicines?", what should staff say? Do we take them back in the store, or do we send people to an NYC drop-off site? The Oct 8 post will bring this question in.
By Oct 8: a photo of the team at the counter for the Oct 10 post, with each person's okay to be on Instagram. No customers in the shot.
Starting Oct 5: staff ask every new customer "How did you hear about us?" and write it down. That's how we'll know whether the ads worked.
Projected results
Move the sliders to see what different budgets should buy. These are estimates based on published 2026 Instagram ad averages, not promises. We'll replace them with real numbers after the first week.
Conservative
Expected
Optimistic
Assumptions. Cost per 1,000 impressions: $22 conservative (health and wellness average), $15 expected, $9 optimistic (general Instagram average). Each person sees the ad 2.5 times on average. 0.8% / 1.2% / 1.6% of impressions become taps to the profile or call button. 4% / 6% / 8% of those taps turn into a call or message.For comparison: regular posts reached about 60 accounts in total over the last 4 weeks of steady posting.
Before we spend
Approval
Meta may require pharmacy certification. Meta requires online pharmacies to be LegitScript-certified before they can advertise. Its policy doesn't say whether that applies to a physical pharmacy promoting delivery or refills. We'll submit the first ad and see whether it's approved. If it's rejected for this reason, we pause and come back with the cost and timeline for certification (LegitScript or NABP) before spending anything else.
Tracking
Meta won't track "sales" for health businesses. Since 2025, health and wellness accounts can't optimize ads for purchases or conversions. We'll run the ads for local reach and profile visits or calls, and measure results at the counter: staff ask every new customer "How did you hear about us?" and write it down.
Content
Same rules as our regular posts. No drug names, no medications in the images, no vaccines, no health claims, no targeting under 18, and no customer information.
How the test runs
By Oct 3: owner approves and sends Vitamed's $50; I add my $50. We set up Meta Ads Manager on the Vitamed account with a $100 spending cap, and staff start asking new customers how they found us.
Oct 5 – 24: promote the two service posts at $5/day, English and Spanish, within about 2 miles of 149th St. We keep posting 3 times a week as normal.
After the first week (~$35 spent): we check what an impression actually costs and how many people tap, and send the owner updated projections. If Meta rejects the ads or the numbers are far below the conservative case, we stop early.
After Oct 24: we report back. We recommend a second round only if at least 2 new customers mentioned Instagram or at least 1% of viewers tapped the ad. $100 is too small to prove the ads pay for themselves. It's enough to see whether local people respond.